The explanation, when it was finally revealed to Lanyard by the most
trivial of incidents, made even his own blindness seem laughable.
For three more days the life of the ship followed in unruffled
tranquillity its ordered course. Liane Delorme was afflicted with no
more visions, as the captain would have called them; though by common
consent the subject had been dropped upon the failure of the search,
and to all seeming was rapidly fading from the minds of everybody but
Liane herself and Lanyard. This last continued to plague himself with
the mystery and, maintaining always an open mind, was prepared at any
time to be shockingly enlightened; that is, to discover that Liane had
not cried wolf without substantial reason. For he had learned this much
at least of life, that everything is always possible.
As for Liane, she made no secret of her unabated timidity, yet suffered
it with such fortitude as could not fail to win admiration. If she was
a bit more subdued, a trifle less high-spirited than was her habit, if
she refused positively to sit with her back to any door or to retire
for the night until her quarters had been examined, if (as Lanyard
suspected) she was never unarmed for a moment, day or night, she
permitted no signs of mental strain to mar the serenity of her
countenance or betray the studied graciousness of her gestures.
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